The maps arrived last week and they all look great. I ended up with a spare Little River map, and it has already been put to very good use. I think having maps does help fishing though, a story and trip report to demonstrate:

I spent Memorial Day weekend at site #17, thinking I would beat pressure since so many of the trails in that area are closed due to storm damage. What I didn't know at the time was that the trail was closed above #17 - so the best fishing on Abrams wasn't open. I hiked up the stream until swimming would be the only way to go higher. Only 2 fish that weekend, a nice bass and some sort of overgrown shiner.

I met a very nice couple who were also staying at #17; they had brought in several keepers Saturday morning before I arrived. The husband, Mike was new to fly fishing and was working as hard as I was to catch them, with similar success. We spent Saturday night around campfires chatting, and we both fished in the limited area most of Sunday. As it was getting close to dark Sunday night, we were all frustrated with the poor fishing conditions, and decided to hike out that night. I had thought about leaving earlier in the day, and when Mike told me at ~8:00 that they were hiking out I decided to join them. That was my first night time hike, and it was really quite fun.

We had talked about other rivers during the trip, and I learned they hadn't fished the Little River. I had purchased the Smokeystreams Little River map a while back, and knew I had a second one coming with the complete set. I gave Mike my spare copy, and told him to give either site 23 or 30 a try next time he was able to get out.

Living much closer to the park than I; Mike and his wife headed out the next weekend (this past), and this morning I had an email from Mike:

Quote:

We have put your map that you gave us to good use,that map is right about what fish is where. We just returned from campsite 30 where I caught at least 30 trout in about 6 hours